Televisa Group: Overview

overview

The Mexican Televisa group, like its Venezuelan competitor Cisneros, is a conglomerate that has moved outside its base country to markets in South America, the US and Europe.

the group

Grupo Televisa has television, radio and publishing interests, with revenues in 2000 of around US$2.16 billion (est 60% from television).

It is Mexico's largest commercial tv broadcaster, with over 300 stations and four networks -

Channel 2 (telenovelas and entertainment),
Channel 4 (home shopping/ US shows in prime time),
Channel 5 (children's shows, US films) and
Channel 9 (telenovelas and movies).

Its main local competitor is Grupo Salinas' TV Azteca.

It owns 17 Mexican radio stations, in partnership with Spain's Grupo Prisa.

It has a 51% stake in the Mexican Cablevision cable tv group (independent of the US Cablevision) and as of 2005 an 11% stake in Perenchio-controlled US broadcast group Univision, described below.

It has mobile phone interests in partnership with the dominant telecommunications group (Telmex) and 60% of Latin American satellite broadcaster Innova with News and Liberty.

Its Edivisa publishing arm is a leading producer of Spanish-language magazines. The group also encompasses recording labels, the dominant film and video distributor (Videocine), film production (Televicine), sports teams and a sports stadium.

It is controlled by the Azcárraga family, which moved from rural estates into cinemas and then into radio broadcasting during the 1930s. At the end of that decade, through alliances with CBS and NBC, it controlled Mexico's two leading radio networks, with over 50% of stations an an estimated 70% of revenue. It also moved into film and record production, advertising and entertainment promotion.

The Azcárragas expanded into television in the 1950s, reflecting their relationship with the corporatist PRI party (which ran Mexico from 1929 to 2000) and with US content suppliers, along with considerable profits from 1941 onwards. In 1955 it absorbed competing commercial television interests, with tacit government support, after disposing of some of its radio holdings. During 1972 the Azcárraga's Telesistema Mexico absorbed Television Independiente Mexicano (established by Monterey business interests in 1968), being renamed Televisa. It took stakes in broadcasters in Bolivia, Peru and Chile during the early 1990s but has attracted most attention for its involvement in Univision.

Univision

The first Spanish-language tv stations in the US were established in 1961 by Azcárraga and associates. They initially formed part of Televisa's Spanish International Network (SIN) which expanded to sixteen stations by the mid-1970s and in 1976 became the first US network to be connected by satellite.

Azcárraga owned 20% of SICC (the license holding company) maintaining control through his US business partners and owning 75% of SIN, the network and business arm that provided programming and handled advertising.

In 1986 the US Federal Communications Commission ruled that structure breached US restrictions on foreign ownership of radio and television stations, forcing divestiture. SIN was acquired by the Hallmark greeting cards group (using junk bonds) and renamed Univision - discussed in more detail elsewhere on this site. Most programming on the new network was provided by Televisa.

Hallmark sold Univision in 1992 to a group of US and overseas investors that included Jerrold Perenchio, Cisneros (12.5%) and Televisa (12.5%). The latter groups currently provide the imported content, with Televisa responsible for around 30% of programming (40% of Univision's revenue but rewarded with 9% to Televisa). Univision also develops news, current affairs, educational and entertainment content within the US.

In June 2002 Univision acquired Hispanic Broadcasting, the leading US Spanish-language radio broadcaster (55 stations, including the top Spanish stations in nine of the leading markets) for US$3.5 billion. Unhappy relations between Televisa and Perenchio - who enjoyed around 75% of votes in the group but only some 15% of the equity - were reflected in disagreement about sale of Univision in June 2006. The group's board announced that it would be sold to a consortium that featured Haim Saban, Thomas H Lee Partners, Texas Pacific and other investors. Televisa had formed a rival consortium with Bain Capital and Bill Gates; with 11% of the equity it threatened to block the sale.

Studies

There's currently no major English-language study of Televisa or Azcárraga, although Alex Saragoza's forthcoming The Mass Media and the Mexican State: the Origins of Televisa (Austin: Uni of Texas Press) promises to be of considerable interest. In the interim consult 'Globalization & Latin Media Powers: The Case of Mexico's Televisa' by Andrew Paxman & Alex Saragoza in Continental Order? Integrating North America for Cybercapitalism (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 2001) edited by Vincent Mosco & Dan Schiller.

For background see the superb Latinos, Inc. The Marketing and Making of a People (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 2001) by Arlene Dávila, Latin American Broadcasting: From Tango to Soap opera (Luton: Uni of Luton Press 1997) by Elizabeth Fox, Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and the Democratization of Mexico (Pittsburgh: Uni of Pittsburgh Press 2006) by Sallie Hughes and Latin Politics, Global Media (Austin: Uni of Texas Press 2002) - co-edited by Fox & Silvio Waisbord.

Unpublished work of interest includes Gabriel Gonzalez Molina's 1990 dissertation 'The Production of Television News: The Supremacy of Corporate Rationale' (University of Leicester) and Celestine Gonzalez de Bustamante's 2006 dissertation 'Televisiones (tele-visions): The Making of Mexican Television News, 1950-1970' (University of Arizona).

Televisa's relationship with Rupert Murdoch and John Malone is examined in works cited in the Murdoch and Liberty profiles.

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